Untitled 1962

Norman Bluhm made this untitled painting with paint, probably oil or acrylic, on something like canvas or paper. The thing I notice first is that juicy red shape sitting center-right. It almost looks like a letter, or maybe a number, but it's not quite either. The paint is drippy, especially the yellow, which adds this amazing messy, playful feeling. You can almost see Bluhm flicking the brush or tilting the surface to get those runs. Then there's that big dark mass of black, which is heavier, more solid. And the way he lets the beige ground peek through everywhere keeps it from being too dense. This piece reminds me a bit of Joan Mitchell's work, in the way she also balanced wild gestures with a kind of underlying structure. But Bluhm has his own energy, his own way of making a painting feel like an event. It’s this dance between intention and accident, control and letting go.